Golden girl who beat iron maiden Marion

It was one of the most sensational surprises of last year's World Championships. After four years and 54 races without defeat Marion Jones, the wonder woman of American athletics, suddenly had to deal with the foreign sensation of coming second.

To make matters worse it happened on the biggest stage outside the Olympic Games and not just once but twice.

The woman who beat her to become world 100 metres champion that day, Zhanna Pintusevich-Block, had been waiting four years for her chance to step out of Jones's shadow.

But since then the Ukrainian sprinter has hardly been seen.

She has withdrawn from view, choosing to do only a handful of meetings on the international circuit and snubbing this month's European Championships in Munich.

Despite that she's still ahead of her nemesis.

Pintusevich-Block is the fastest woman in the world this year having run a blistering time of 10.83 seconds in a low key meeting in Heusden, Belgium on 20 July.

That's a hundredth of a second quicker than 26-year-old Jones, who ran 10.84secs in Monaco just a day earlier.

The two haven't met since Canada last year when Pintusevich-Block's win in the 100m final and semi-final was greeted by stunned disbelief.

In fact, the 30-year-old looked as dumbstruck as everyone else that evening in the Edmonton Commonwealth Stadium.

But Pintusevich-Block will get the chance to prove last year was no fluke when they meet face-to-face in next Friday's Norwich Union Grand Prix at Crystal Palace.

And the Ukrainian is warning that her restful summer has made her even more dangerous than last year.

She told Standard Sport: "I decided to take a break this season. Major championships take a lot out of you mentally and physically.

"I'm 30 now and I have not had a break in 11 years, so as there was no World Championships or Olympics I planned to take a rest this year. You have got to look at the bigger picture and that's the World Championships next year and the Olympics in Athens in 2004.

"But I actually feel like I am in better shape this year.

"I didn't run under 10.9secs throughout all of last year, but this year I have done it twice, so I'm ready for Crystal Palace and Marion Jones and really looking forward to it."

Despite finally gaining revenge for the World Championships in Athens in 1997 when Pintusevich-Block celebrated victory in the 100m only to be told that she had lost to Jones on a photo finish, Pintusevich-Block says last year's triumph has not changed her life.

She is still relatively unknown in the Ukraine where footballers such as Tottenham's Sergei Rebrov and Andriy Shevchenko of AC Milan are still king.

She said: "It didn't change anything for me because I had already had some success before. And besides track and field is not the most popular sport in the Ukraine.

"But for me it was definitely the best victory of my career, the most significant. It was always my dream to win the 100m dash.

"I also took revenge for 1997, I made a mistake that day, I thought I had won and I hadn't.

"I had been waiting four years for the opportunity to set the record straight. Now it is done I don't have to worry about that any more. I am world champion, everyone is now looking at me and I am happy about that because I proved myself.

"Yes, maybe now I feel a little bit more responsibility because everyone is looking at me.

"But last year wasn't a fluke. I have the fastest time in the world this year, so people know last year was not an accident and that I didn't just get lucky one time.

"What I have to remember is that no athlete should ever see another athlete as unbeatable.